Movies

7 Unsung X-MEN Heroes That Would Be Perfect for THE GIFTED

by Eric Diaz
Jan 31 2018 • 9:00 AM

Fox’s X-Men inspired show The Gifted recently finished airing its first season, and the show was a welcome surprise for longtime Marvel Comics fans. One of the best aspects of the show is that it gives the spotlight to comic book characters who have long been overlooked by the 10 X-Men films we’ve seen over the past 18 years.

Polaris and Thunderbird, always C-list members of the X-Men in the comics, are front and center on this show, and have earned more character development in this series than their comic book counterparts maybe ever had. We also got to see relatively minor X-Men villains, like the Stepford Cuckoos and Ahab, get starring roles, something very unlikely to happen in a movie.With all that in mind, we started wondering which other minor Marvel Mutants might be a perfect fit on season two of the series. Here are our top choices for other X-Men characters we want to see finally earn their due on The Gifted.

1. Rachel Summers

The biggest no-brainer for this series would be to bring in Rachel Summers, the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey from a dystopian alternate future. In her world, Rachel was turned into a Hound to hunt down other mutants by the murderous Ahab. Rachel is psychic/telekinetic  like her mom, and is someone who brings a positive attitude with her, despite her tragic background. She would always be the person to remind the members of the Mutant Underground that it could always be worse. With both the Hounds and Ahab in their earlier incarnations having already been introduced on The Gifted, if that isn’t all setting up the arrival of Rachel Summers, I don’t know what is.

2. The Morlocks

In the X-Men universe, some mutants pass for human, and some look human but just have oddly colored eyes or hair. But then there are the Morlocks, mutants who look so different as to not be able to pass at all in human society and are forced to live underground in the sewers beneath New York City. Long a staple of X-Men comics, this literal “mutant underground” would fit in far more with the mutant underground on The Gifted than in any X-Men movie.

3. Malice

Malice is the name given to a purely psychic entity that preys on people and possesses them, usually for short periods of time. But there was one mutant that Malice bonded with that lasted for years, and her name was Polaris. Yes, the same Polaris that is one of the main stars of The Gifted. She’s already started to turn dark on the show, but could possession by Malice on the series take things even further?

4. Selene

The end of season one of The Gifted introduced the idea that the Hellfire Club is out there causing trouble. While high profile members likes Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost are probably off limits to the producers because of their involvement in the films, the next obvious choice is Selene, the Black Queen. A psychic vampire who is 17,000 years old, and maybe the first mutant, her prolonged life is attributed to sucking the life force out of her victims. The comics have long since abandoned Selene for Apocalypse as their go-to ancient mutant, so give her new life on The Gifted.

5. Unus the Untouchable

A very early X-Men villain, Italian mutant Angelo Unuscione first appeared way back in issue #8 of the Uncanny X-Men in 1965, going by the name Unus the Untouchable. A Jack Kirby/Stan Lee creation, Unus’ power is his ability to consciously project an invisible force field which protects him from harm. He doesn’t get a lot of love in the modern X-books and the movies are unlikely to ever come calling, but his power set would be very manageable on a TV budget.

6. Destiny

In the comics, Mystique was almost always paired with Destiny, a blind older woman whose mutant power allowed her to see the future. She and Mystique were actually a couple, but while Mystique got to go the Hollywood route, Destiny was left behind and never appeared on film. A show like The Gifted would be an ideal place to introduce the character, and the search for Destiny’s diaries, where she wrote down all her visions of the future, could make for an excellent season long arc.

7. X-Terminators

When the original five X-Men reformed as X-Factor, they also posed as “mutant hunters” called the X-Terminators. They would go on national TV, flash an 800 number you could call to “catch” dangerous mutants, kind of like the Ghostbusters, but then secretly train those mutants. Eventually, the name X-Terminators was handed over to the group of mutants kids they saved, characters which included Boom-Boom, Rictor, Wiz Kid, Leech, Skidz, and more. Regardless of which characters they use, the concept of the X-Terminators, mutants posing as mutant hunters, would be a good idea for The Gifted.

Which less famous mutant characters do you think fit perfectly on The Gifted? Let us know your choices down below in the comments.

Images: 20th Century Fox / Marvel Comics 

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